Why is it????????????

Any photographer who proclaims himself an artist, will have a lot of backlash from other photographers against him/her. The reason for this is quite simple, photography as an art form is still questionable.
 
GSNfan said:
photography as an art form is still questionable.
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This is at odds with the fact that most top notch museums (MOMA, whitney, guggenheim to say a few) dedicate large resources to photography.
Why is it that many consider photography a questionable form of art? What exactly is questionable?
 
daninjc said:
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Why is it that many consider photography a questionable form of art? What exactly is questionable?
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It ain't painting or sculpture. It's mechanical, not entirely man-made. You can paint with your fingers, you can sculpt with your hands, but you can't photograph without a device. It's too new. It's a craft. It's a commercial tool.

The reasons are endless. And all wrong.
 
daninjc said:
Why is it that many consider photography a questionable form of art? What exactly is questionable?
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With still photography you can try and photograph in an "artistic style", but simply because you're being artistic does not make your work automatically art.

Photography is like writing, it can be stylistically used in many ways and one of those style is the artistic style. However, writing or photography essentially remain the same as a medium, and that is to describe and communicate.

However, when it comes to photography, the real power is with the documentary style and socially engaged photographs and their photographers. And there to use the word art almost demeans those important works and takes away their urgency and seriousness...
 
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Sparrow said:
Personally, I think the original photo is quite well composed, not very interesting but well enough composed. I can see why he choose to tilt the camera so he could keep the light on the right parallel to the frame edge and how the dark areas contain the image. However to claim the rather mundane subject is redeemed by a bizarre colour balance doesn't work for me, a bit like cross-processing beyond the novelty it's just a one trick pony.
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I really don't think you can say *anything* about the color balance of a big custom dye transfer print by a major artist who is known for his work in color (indeed, whose work in color was a major factor in getting color photography taken seriously as art in the first place) from a dinky little web JPEG.

Just sayin'.
 
unfortunately the truth about art and becoming famous as an artist is that the rarified world is controlled by the art establishment and its more about being invited into that world and not about pure talent. I look at some of the artists in the saatchi collection in the UK and wonder how on earth some of them get in there. And then you start to realise that these artists are like television celebrities who are manufactured for profit, chewed up and spat out before anyone realised there was really nothing to celebrate about them in the first place.
 
tlitody said:
unfortunately the truth about art and becoming famous as an artist is that the rarified world is controlled by the art establishment and its more about being invited into that world and not about pure talent. I look at some of the artists in the saatchi collection in the UK and wonder how on earth some of them get in there. And then you start to realise that these artists are like television celebrities who are manufactured for profit, chewed up and spat out before anyone realised there was really nothing to celebrate about them in the first place.
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I agree. Which is perhaps my point about some of these photographers and photographs shown and discussed in this thread.
 
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I'm not a huge fan of Eggleston, but I understand at least some of what he's up to, and I am not ready to blithely dismiss his body of work, or to admit the possibility that it may encompass context or nuance that I don't have the eyes to see.

The amount of "my kid could do that" glibness in this thread is mildly nauseating.
 
Art photography is the only category of still photography that is doing very well. It has its 'artists', buyers, seller, resellers, dealers, galleries, museums and auctions houses. It is a complete market and anyone who breaks through will make a lot of money... Art is just another commodity in a market economy.

The best part about art photography is that all you have to do is tell common folk that your work is art, and those people will take you on face value because most of them don't know any better and hate to appear foolish by questioning you...
 
Sparrow said:
Well, obviously, no not at all.

That is what editing is supposed to do, would you think?
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Ah, so judgment is required, so weaker work is never seen.

This all comes down to defining "Art". That's where this conversation ends up. It can take a lot of different routes to get there, but that's where this conversation ends; or rather, doesn't end.
 
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semilog said:
I'm not a huge fan of Eggleston, but I understand at least some of what he's up to, and I am not ready to blithely dismiss his body of work, or to admit the possibility that it may encompass context or nuance that I don't have the eyes to see.

The amount of "my kid could do that" glibness in this thread is mildly nauseating.
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Maybe thats true but, with respect, there is also far too much "Oh.....this has been photogrpahed by someone famous so it must be wonderful even though I cannot see it and that has to mean I must be stupid or uninformed"


Frankly I am always very suspicious of artists who say -"My work is ahead of its time. I am misunderstood. The world is not ready for me." Occasionally its true................Very occasionally!
 
I think this era of photography has become all about "fixing" things with photoshop. Every photographer loves to tell other photographers what is wrong with the other's photos. I think that's why it has been put in your head to "fix" photos. I agree that there are ways to make a more pleasing photograph, but, to me, I try to use only what is available. I don't particularly care for the photo that much, but I think he saw something he liked and used what was there to create the photo.

That's why I like street photography. No one cares about straight lines and all that jazz so much. It's about what is there and happening right in front of you.
 
semilog said:
I really don't think you can say *anything* about the color balance of a big custom dye transfer print by a major artist who is known for his work in color (indeed, whose work in color was a major factor in getting color photography taken seriously as art in the first place) from a dinky little web JPEG.

Just sayin'.
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Fair comment, I was probably warming to the subject, it could well be different in person
 
hteasley said:
Ah, so judgment is required, so weaker work is never seen.

This all comes down to defining "Art". That's where this conversation ends up. It can take a lot of different routes to get there, but that's where this conversation ends; or rather, doesn't end.
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Well, yes, if you insist on ascribing impossible definitions to the discussion that would end it
 
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peterm1 said:
Maybe thats true but, with respect, there is also far too much "Oh.....this has been photogrpahed by someone famous so it must be wonderful even though I cannot see it and that has to mean I must be stupid or uninformed"
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Ok, but conversely, the I don't like his work so it must be bad crowd is just as irksome.
 
MickH said:
@PeterM... thanks for those links. Saul Leiter's a new one on me and I like what I see.
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I discovered Leiter recently too. His book Early Color is fantastic. You might also check out Fred Herzog's Vancouver Photographs (if you can find a copy).
 
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